City activists urge Brockton mayor to drop Stonehill sewer deal

Stonehill College in Easton has a sewer agreement with Brockton that has saved the school millions of dollars.

BROCKTON – A group of city activists is calling on Mayor Bill Carpenter to stop negotiating with Stonehill College over its sewer contract with Brockton.

Late last month Stop the Power, an organization founded to halt the proposed Brockton power plant, mailed out more than 15,000 postcards to registered voters and businesses in the city.

The literature described what Stop the Power termed “Bill Carpenter’s Back Room Deal.”

An agreement between the college and the city allows Stonehill to be billed through separate accounts for different buildings, each at lower rates than would be applied if the school were billed as a single large entity, as the Veterans Affairs facility is.

The school pays 58 separate bills, some at rates comparable to a single-family home. An Enterprise investigation last year found that Brockton had lost out on more than $2 million in sewer revenue since the agreement was signed in 1996.

“What are they being treated special for?” said Ed Byers, CEO of Cindy’s Kitchen and Stop the Power organizer.

The group is calling on Carpenter to demand that the college pay the full market rate for its sewer costs.

Justin Kane, a Stop the Power organizer, said the college has the resources to pay the same rate as other large city sewer users.

“Stonehill has a lot of power, a lot of money,” Kane said. “They can do the right thing, they can afford it.”

Kristen Magda, a spokeswoman for Stonehill, said in a previous statement that college executives could not speak about the details of the negotiations, but said “we are optimistic we can reach an agreement that will be fair both to the city and to the college.”

Carpenter on Tuesday decried the “smear tactics” of Stop the Power, saying that he has been transparent about negotiating better terms for the city.

“All throughout my campaign I criticized (former mayor) Linda Balzotti about having the bad deal for four years and not doing anything about it,” Carpenter said. “I don’t believe they are paying a full and fair bill to the city.”

The mayor also criticized Stop the Power’s reference to his “behind closed doors” meetings with Stonehill.

“If I was making a backroom deal why would I tell The Enterprise about it?” Carpenter said, referring to an article in June describing three recent meetings with Stonehill representatives.

The mayor said a fourth meeting is imminent and, if an agreement is not reached within the next couple months, he may let the agreement expire in 2016. Carpenter said he is not inclined to cancel the agreement immediately, saying that such a move would likely lead to high litigation costs.

Carpenter also said he has “put the city at arms length with any conflicts of interest with Stonehill.”

City Solicitor Philip Nessralla, who has close ties to the college through a family scholarship fund, has recused himself from the negotiations, the mayor said.